RV LIFE Podcast
The RV LIFE Podcast, created by one of the premier companies in the RV industry, is for the RV Community with a mission to Educate, Entertain and Explore the RV Lifestyle. The Podcast will explore all things RV Life: living, working, exploring, learning. With host Patti Hunt, full time RVers, content creators, educators and explorers.
RV LIFE Podcast
RV Medical Emergencies: What Every RVer Needs to Know Before Hitting the Road
In this powerful episode of I (Patti Hunt) dives deep into a critical topic that every RVer needs to understand: how to be prepared for a medical emergency while traveling. Joined by Bob Bacheler, Managing Director of Flying Angels and a certified critical care flight nurse, they explore what to do when health emergencies strike far from home. From essential documents to travel insurance tips and real-life medical transport stories, this episode offers life-saving advice and actionable steps for RVers of all ages. Whether you're full-timing or weekend adventuring, don't hit the road without listening to this essential guide to RV health safety.
Key Takeaways:
- What to pack in your RV emergency go-folder (insurance, medical records, contact list)
- How to decide when to call 911 vs. drive to the ER
- The role of companies like Flying Angels in medical transport to get back “home”
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One minute you are living the RV dream, the next you're in the ER, far from home. What you do next is so important. I'm Patti Hunt and you're listening to the RV Life Podcast. Bob, what is it like to help bring someone home when they're sick or injured, scared and far away from loved ones?
Speaker 2:Patty. As a healthcare professional and a nurse, it is one of the great joys to be able to help somebody in one of the worst times of their life.
Speaker 1:And we are going to hear all about what it takes to bring somebody home when you're out traveling, what it takes to bring somebody home when you're out traveling. Even those of us who are full timers, as a lot of people know, I was full time for over three years and I always thought of wherever the RV was that was home. But in an emergency, you want to be with family, friends. You want to be back quote unquote back home. So we're going to talk all about that. The RV Life podcast was created to educate, entertain and explore the RV lifestyle, with the mission to inspire you to live life to the fullest. Today's guest is here to help us be prepared for the emergencies that everybody hopes. They never have happened to them, but you need to be prepared for. He will share his knowledge on how to prepare for an emergency, what to do when your loved one is stable but needs to get back home or to a different type of facility, as well as what to consider when looking for insurance as we RV around the country.
Speaker 1:Open Roads Resort has now six incredible locations. They just announced their newest location in Cheyenne, wyoming. They do have a location in Idaho, nebraska, new Mexico, and two in Texas and the newest location is currently opened and they are doing some major upgrades and expanding. All of these parks are highly favored parks by you, the RVer. On the campgroundsrvlifecom website, check out everything you need to know about these campgrounds on RVlife, on campgroundsrvlifecom, or go to openroadresortscom. Now let's talk about Bob. Bob Batchelor is the Director of Nursing Specialty Flight.
Speaker 2:Physiologist.
Speaker 1:Some of these are going to be difficult.
Speaker 2:Certified Flight.
Speaker 1:Registered Nurse Certified flight registered nurse, certified critical care registered nurse, certified dementia practitioner and certified travel health by the International Society of Travel Medicine. There are a whole lot of letters after the name. Bob has been a critical care nurse for over 30 years and a flight nurse for over 15 years years and a flight nurse for over 15 years. Bob is a passionate advocate for the professionalism of flight nursing and specialty commercial medical escort services. Bob has served on the board of directors for the Air and Surface Transport Nurses Association, has served as an adjunct faculty for Newman University for the critical care rotation and has contributed to multiple texts on medical transport as well as many news outlets and magazine. Bob is currently the managing director of Flying Angels, which has RNs and doctors around the US and around the world to fly with people who have medical needs on commercial carriers. That is a mouthful, I think. That's it. We're done with the show.
Speaker 2:Wow, it sounds like I've been doing this for a while.
Speaker 1:Yes, it does, and I wanted all of these things pointed out that you do because obviously you are incredibly qualified. But let's talk a little bit about you personally. You actually were an RVer right, I was an RVer.
Speaker 2:I have had two class A RVs in my life. I had a 32-foot gas RV but I fell in love with diesel pusher so I had an RV much like yours. I think it was a 2002 Monaco Dynasty. That boy. I just love being on the road. My happy place was being out on the highway and just rolling down the road. It was wonderful.
Speaker 1:And you like the actual RV the driving part just rolling down the road. It was wonderful. And you like the actual RV?
Speaker 2:the driving part of it more than the camping right. I am one of those people that you know. I really think I enjoy being on the road and driving more than I enjoy going to the places I was going to be at, which is very much like my current flight career that you know. I love being on the airplane. I love being a passenger on a commercial airline. Doesn't really matter where I'm going, so maybe it's just traveling.
Speaker 1:Wow. Now for my listeners that have heard the podcast before, they know this story, I want to give a little update. So my husband, dan, and I started full-time RVing four years ago, like a lot of people. It was during the pandemic. What was there to do? So we decided to sell everything and buy an RV and travel the road full-time. And I tell my listeners that when Dan suggested we go full-time, I laughed because I thought it was joking because to that point I had only been in an RV for seven nights. Well, those seven nights in that RV was your RV. So that kind of completes the story. So, and I loved it, I don't know, I did love the destination, I think, more than the actual travel, but I did enjoy those nights we spent in the RV going camping, but there were only seven nights. So what did I know about going full-time RV? So, as many of you may suspect, bob and I have actually been really good friends for 20 years.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 1:Closest best of friends, and so I know I'm partial closest best of friends, and so I know I'm partial. But I knew that talking about this topic was so important in the RV community. As people will hear, I had my own experience with difficulties while on the road, and so I knew that you had to be on the show. We had to talk about all these important things, so let's jump in. First of all, why did you choose nursing some 30 years ago?
Speaker 2:Well, it's an interesting story because I had gone to college 10 years earlier. I was a serial entrepreneur, which anybody who's an entrepreneur knows often involves failure, and I, like many entrepreneurs, failed at quite a number of the things I tried. I decided I was going to have a family and I realized that if I was going to have a family, I wanted to make sure that I had a backup career, something I could do in the event that my entrepreneurship didn't work out. So I decided to go to nursing school. I said, well, that'll be fun.
Speaker 1:So I went to community college, you decided that it'd be fun.
Speaker 2:I decided I wasn't doing enough, so let me just do something else. So I went to community college at Philadelphia for their associate's degree in nursing. I did not think I was ever going to make a career out of it. I didn't think it was something that I had this passion to do. But I wound up getting out of it and I wound up taking a position as a trauma nurse in one of the major level one trauma center ICUs and I said, boy, you know this is an awful lot of fun and I enjoyed it Friday night in the ER and the trauma bay. It was just a lot of fun.
Speaker 1:Wait, not only nursing, but trauma, absolutely. Not only nursing, but trauma In one of the major trauma ERs in Philadelphia. Of all places, this was fun.
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, you know that's where most of us guys go. I mean anybody who's a guy in nursing not all, but you know, for a large number we wind up going into the trauma, into the ICU, into the burn units, into the real adrenaline fields. That's where I went into.
Speaker 1:And if people want to see what a day in the life looks like in the trauma ER. We've been watching the show the Pit and you said it's really very realistic.
Speaker 2:I have yet to find anybody who is a clinician who's watched the Pit, who has really any arguments with it. Spoiler alert you know, around the 19th episode they get a little wonky, but other than that the show is a terrific show and I'm actually thrilled to see it come back. And I'm actually thrilled to see it come back. When I was first starting my nursing career, we would go into the rooms at 10 o'clock on a Thursday night and watch ER back when it was a brand new show.
Speaker 1:And was that as realistic, do you think? I think it was.
Speaker 2:I think it was. I think the pit adds a new degree of realism, but for the most part we were in ER watching ER and saying well, yeah, that sounds pretty good, the real day in the life of what an emergency room nurse goes through.
Speaker 1:Okay, but today's topic is incredibly important to me. Important to me and after talking to the RV Life podcast team our team of four people that sometimes more that we talk to about good topics and for the RV community, we knew this was a good topic. It is a very personal topic for me, having dealt with a lot of medical issues with Dan being on the road, and we'll talk about that as we go through. But right now one start with people going out, whether they're full time, whether they're part time, whether they're taking that weekend trip in the car. There are some things that people need to take with them to be prepared. You know, if you're out campaigning, you have an emergency. What type of like? Let's start with like, basic paperwork. What types of things should people have with them?
Speaker 2:Well, as far as paperwork goes, everybody should have their go-to file. This is a file that's going to list all their medical conditions. This is going to list all their insurance. This is going to list all their points of contact. There's an organization called the Aging Life Care Association and what they do is they care for seniors, and one of the terrific things that they've come up with is just your GoPacket. It's a red folder that everybody should know where it is and there should be copies of it. And in the event that something happens, if you're in an emergency, if you're in an accident, if something catastrophic happens, you're not rooting around saying where's my insurance, who's my doctor, who are my points of contact, who are my specialists Everything in one particular place and you can just open up and everything you need to know is in there.
Speaker 1:Including medications because I know. I've gone into the ER, I know what all the medications are, but in that moment you cannot think of one name, of one prescription, and it does make it more difficult. Now, in the world, I do love the paper folder because you never know. But in the world of digital, I think having copies digitally as well is great. We always have our phones with us.
Speaker 2:Having everything on a USB drive is also helpful, but one of the problems in modern medicine is and even, I think, philadelphia, where we are now, you know, there are several different hospital systems and they all have terrific medical record systems. The problem is, none of them talk to each other.
Speaker 1:So they're not connected.
Speaker 2:So in a lot of times, if one hospital needs to send information to another hospital, we're dealing with faxes. I mean most hospitals send documents by fax. It's one of the few still to this day because faxes are still considered HIPAA compliant.
Speaker 1:So, you.
Speaker 2:A lot of hospitals can't even email records. So you're talking about, you know, taking a document, printing it out, sending it to a fax machine. Ideally they're going to fax it with the right side up and they're going to fax the copy to the side of the paper that actually has the information on it, rather than just faxing the back copy and then you're there. So you might as well have a clean typed out page, and if you want to have everything on a USB 2, usb drive 2, that's probably also better. But the important part, have the information handy.
Speaker 1:Right Now for me, all of these documents and again, having gone through it with Dan, I have a folder on my phone that has copies of all of these documents as well. The other thing that I think is important for RVers that I think is important for RVers I went through this when you have to call 911 and you're in the campground, the things that you should know and I've said this on episodes before I think everybody needs a wipe-off type board the name of the campground that you pulled into, the site number you're at and the emergency number for the campground. Because I didn't realize this but I was told that at some campgrounds if an ambulance or emergency is coming, the campground needs to know to open the gate. So that all should be the first thing you do when you are setting up your RV and it should be like I said I use a wipe off board. You could use a whiteboard, whatever works, you could use a paper that you slide in, whatever works, but everybody in the RV should know where that is and how to dial 911.
Speaker 1:I have a friend of mine. She fell off a chair. She was hurt. She had three little kids there. Her eight I think it was eight or nine knew how to call for an ambulance. They were in a campground. So really everybody should be prepared. And again, I told you we're talking about things we hope never happens. But the better prepared everybody is, everybody is, the better.
Speaker 2:And GPS will be able to take EMS to the campground, but you know if you're in Site 512, they're going to have a heck of a time. So this, ideally you know, once you have the emergency and you call 911, hopefully somebody at the front desk or the reception can actually guide them into where Site 512 is.
Speaker 1:And that's exactly because you know, again, my RV community. You know, if you're in Thousand Trails, orlando, looking for a site, there's over 1,100 sites there. You don't want the ambulance to have to figure out where to go, so that's so important. And again, nobody wants these unfortunate things to happen. I know when we think about emergencies we think about the er and all those things. We're thinking the older community I hear that all the time, our fears of the older community and if they get sick or for. But you have a lot of experience within your company of flying younger people younger, so let's talk about that.
Speaker 2:Sure, when people are younger, they tend to think they're invincible. A lot of the older population that we transport are exacerbations of some of the chronic conditions they have their lung problems, their heart problems. The younger population are people who get injured, and boy I'll tell you what if I've learned anything in my day. Being at a campground and being out in the woods is a place where you can get injured pretty darn easily.
Speaker 2:One of the things that I'm constantly preaching about is to make sure that your members have a medical travel insurance policy or some policy that will make sure that covers the medical expenses if they're out of network, from where their home base may be and whether they're young or old. Again, if you're older, well, that might be necessary for a chronic condition. If you're younger, that may be because you tripped on a log or you had some other accident tripped on a log or you had some other accident. You know, I've had them myself, yeah, and I've transported plenty of people who have had accidents while going out and hiking or mountain climbing or chopping wood or doing or skiing.
Speaker 1:You had a case. The guy was skiing.
Speaker 2:We've done any number of transfers of people on ski. You know who got injured while skiing. Yes, Right.
Speaker 1:Okay, so you've touched on travel insurance. Now I want to break this down. You are not going to promote any specific company People have to do their research but you can give some tips on what to look for. So there's health insurance. That is something pretty much everybody has. If you don't, health insurance is important For those of you that are full-time or travel a lot.
Speaker 1:Rvers Insurance is a company. I've had them on the show. I'll put that information in the show notes. They are a company that is supported by RV Life. I have spoken to them. I was looking for insurance through them. Everybody from the company I've come in contact with was amazing at helping me figure out which insurance would be better, and the insurance for Dan and his age, with his medical conditions, was different from the insurance for me. So there's somebody, like I said I'll put that in the show notes to reach out. That's the health insurance. Some of the health insurances, like Independence, blue Cross, will cover you if you're out in network, and that's something that everybody with their individual health insurance should look into, right? So if they're from Pennsylvania and Florida, what's covered?
Speaker 2:That's something that, if you're going to be on the road, if you're going to be traveling, you want to make sure you know what does your insurance cover when you're out of network, Because the co-pays and deductibles outside of network can be multiples of what they are in network and many of us have high deductible plans where you know you need to spend $5,000 before the insurance will kick in. Well, if you're out of network, that could be $20,000, $25,000. That can be very significant. So these are things that you don't want to wait until you need before you actually go out and figure out what insurance you have or what your insurance will cover.
Speaker 1:Right, and I think there's a couple of ways. Calling the insurance company, health insurance company you have, checking with them what's covered. Reading a fine print on insurance is daunting at best, but you have to know, you have to find out. Do not I'm going to act like a teacher. Do not post this on Facebook and expect to get a good answer. You have to do the research. Look at your insurance company. For those of us who are full-time like being full-time we made sure our insurance will cover us pretty much wherever we were. Again, depending on the policy that we picked. There is the fine print and those kinds of things. Now, is it also true that if you have an emergency and you're out of state that kind of you go to an ER? Right, you don't question? So can you talk a little bit about?
Speaker 2:You are going to go to your local ER and they're going to treat you there. Your insurance, your general medical insurance, will most likely not pay to repatriate or send you back to wherever your home base is, so you want to make sure that you have specific insurance that would get you back home in the event that you need that.
Speaker 1:Okay, so two things here. If I have health insurance in Pennsylvania, I go to Florida, I have an emergency, Some health insurance will cover that. They'll cover the emergency. That is correct and that's what they deem an emergency.
Speaker 1:Not necessarily They'll cover the emergency that is correct and that's what they deem an emergency, not necessarily what you deem an emergency. Some insurance companies, again just trying to give as much information, will say you should have gone to urgent care as opposed to an ER. So find out Now you're talking about get to the emergency room. You have an issue and we're going to talk about a couple of situations with Dan, because this is very specific. I called Bob two and a half years ago and said Dan had COVID. A lot of people don't know this. He had gotten so bad that I had to call an ambulance and he was taken to a hospital and at that point, honestly, we weren't sure if he was going to survive, and so it's hard to talk about. But there you were. The next day you flew out.
Speaker 2:Sorry, not everybody has a bomb.
Speaker 1:But you flew out and stayed with me for three, five plus days. He was in the ICU. At that point you're not worried about insurance or any of that. I mean honestly it truly an emergency, calling an ambulance when you're in that situation, remembering the site you're in, even just remembering your own name in that kind of situation. So he was taken to the hospital and having I guess one of the points here is yes, the insurance, yes, the information, what medicine? What are the medical conditions? But having those people that are supportive because as strong as I am in emergency situations and I think I'm really good at emergency situations there's limits to it.
Speaker 2:So there's limits for everybody even even those of us who are professionals, who have spent years in trauma. You know when I would take one of my children to the ER when they were injured. You know, boy, I just was not nearly as calm and quiet and as collected. You know when it was my daughter there in the hospital bed, you know that raises an entirely different frame of reference for you.
Speaker 1:And you really. And the point, the big point here is we could talk about all the details and all the paperwork, but having that support, you need the support. You need to be able to call somebody and cry, and literally that's what I did. I'm not sure there were words that came out. I think I got the point across, but you know, at some point you need that. So having people that you know can support you in an emergency situation when it comes to insurance and those kinds of situations you're not thinking about that at the time, you know, and the hospital will come in very quickly after your loved one is brought into the hospital to talk about insurance, and they want those cards of that information. For sure, that's not necessarily the focus, but now.
Speaker 1:So Dan was in the hospital. In that situation I ended up having to bring him back to the RV and he hadn't been out of bed in 17 days, so he could barely walk. He wanted, after 17 days, to get out of the hospital and I had to put my foot down because he couldn't walk to get into the RV, and so you know that was a safety concern. So I demanded that the hospital keep him there until he was able to walk so I could get him into the RV and all of that that needs to be set up when you're in an RV. He was on oxygen, so having oxygen, making sure you're somewhere, that you're plumped in, not running on battery.
Speaker 1:So these are all things, and we could go into all these little details. The point is to have somebody that's supportive to you, know, be aware of certain things that you're going to be able to do on your own and some things that you're just going to need help. Now Dan got ill again a little over a year ago, and this was out of my expertise. This was out of what I can handle. My expertise, this was out of what I could handle, and so, for those people who know, it was over a year ago now and he had had a number of strokes that we weren't even aware of Again.
Speaker 2:I called you. You have me on speed dial at this point.
Speaker 1:I absolutely did and I was like I just don't know what to do at this point. I knew I could keep taking care of him, and so you know. You said what do we need to do? Now I am and I will continue to say incredibly grateful that I did not just get on a plane with him and fly him back. He worsened after we got back here, but that would not have been a good thing. So when I called you, you said what do you want to do? Like, I'll come down, I'll fly you back. We ended up packing up the whole RV and you drove us back. The question is how do people make that decision? I know there are people that get on a plane, fly their loved one back Not necessarily the safest thing. How do you?
Speaker 2:Well, as you identified earlier, you want to be around family, you want to be where your support structure is. So, in your particular case, your support structure was here in Philadelphia. Your children were here in Philadelphia and Dan my pop was here.
Speaker 1:Let's just get real. Your children were here in Philadelphia, and Dan and Bob was here. Let's just get real, you were here.
Speaker 2:And Dan grew up in the Philadelphia area and that's how Dan and I had become friends many, many years ago. So the question is how do you want to get back? You need to get back to where your support structure is, which is what you decided that you wanted to do, and there's any number of ways of doing that. Now, the company that I manage we have doctors and nurses as Patty introduced who accompany people on the commercial airlines. So you know that was one of the considerations to send one of our nurses down, pick you and Dan up and then fly you back on a commercial airline. And you know, we have the medical monitoring equipment, we have the oxygen equipment, so we could have done that safely.
Speaker 2:The concern was that you had all your stuff in it. We knew, you know, that when this happened you were going to want to have your stuff back here in Philadelphia and you were going to live, you were going to come back to Philadelphia for an extended period of time because this is where your children were. So in that particular case, yes, we flew down and you had your stuff loaded up in the U-Haul, so we just drove. We just drove back that way. But you know, normally I would have just recommended that we send one of our team down, you know, get Dan, and then we have. We have a go to guy named Doug, who was a terrific flight nurse, been with us for you know, since day one, and you know he would he would have gotten you back?
Speaker 2:Yes, absolutely. Now the problem there was all your stuff and your RV would have been in Florida, but we got your stuff back and your RV was there for a while anyway.
Speaker 1:Right, right. And so just to clarify things, I'd like to make sure people are following Going back on an airplane with a commercial flight and I've been with you at some of your conferences commercial flight, american Airlines, united commercial flight, which makes it way more affordable for somebody.
Speaker 2:Well, that's the. You know, that's our niche market. Everybody's familiar with the air ambulance companies, the private Lear jets that transport people around, and that's one way to go, but in many cases this is an out-of-pocket expense for people. So it's a fraction of the cost to fly somebody on a commercial airline with a flight nurse than it is to put them on their ambulance. A lot of people don't know our service is even an option and again, the problem is when somebody is in a crisis situation, they may not have days and weeks to research just to see what are all the options out there.
Speaker 1:Right, and again I'm going to say this is we're talking about flying angels. You can go to flyingangelscom and we're going to talk more about that. I do have to take a quick break. Well, we talked a lot so far. This is, and this is very important to both of us If you're looking for an RV, when you're an RVer, you want to know that somebody's with you every step of the way, just like if you have a medical issue.
Speaker 1:So if you're looking for sales or service, blue Compass RV is the company. There. Locations coast to coast, more than 15,000 new and used RVs and over a thousand service bays, with more certified RV technicians than any other dealer. Blue Compass is with you today, tomorrow and the road ahead. Visit your local Blue Compass RV dealer or go to bluecompassrvcom today, and so for those of you who are still excited about the RV, you know world, the good does outweigh the bad. Blue Compass is a great way to go, so let's continue on that.
Speaker 1:I'm going to go back into this like in a progression. Dan did go to the hospital at this point, but he but yes, I wanted to come back, quote, unquote home, and I'm going to reiterate I would say all the time home was where the RV was until you had that major emergency and I wanted to be with family and friends, and so we made the decision that it was safe to bring him back. Obviously, bring our stuff back If you had thought, hey, we need to get him back quickly, a flight would be the better way to go For people. How did they make that choice? Do I get on an airplane with them?
Speaker 1:I've heard stories where a couple one of them was very ill the insurance company booked their flight, put them on a flight. There was nobody with them and the person said that the flight got canceled. They called this insurance company I'm not going to mention names and the insurance company said that is a airline issue, that's not our issue. And here he was. I think it was the guy who was there with his ill wife. That is not a situation you want to be in. But how do people determine? Do I need an escort? So there are people that will escort somebody back that does not have medical background, a company like Flying Angels that does have highly qualified, certified nurses, or I can get on the airplane myself. How does somebody determine that?
Speaker 2:The vast majority of people that we're transporting are in the hospital system and they've had their stroke or they've had their heart attack or they've had their injury and all of a sudden they're in the ER, and that's where the decision is being made what is best for the patient. It's not terribly common for us to be dealing with people in their own RVs saying, well, we're not quite sure, what do we want to do? Do we want to go home? Do we want to drive home? Do we want to fly home? Do we want somebody to bring us home? For the most part, we're talking about those people who have had the injury, who have had the health problem and are in serious condition at this point.
Speaker 1:Okay, so it's an easier decision. Now, truth be told, sometimes the hospitals aren't giving you the best, and I know we're not here to bash anybody or say anything, I'm going to talk about my own personal experience. Some 17 years ago my father had had a major heart attack, a hole in his heart that was patched. He was at Einstein Hospital, one of the top hospitals in Philadelphia, and they want to fly him to the Cleveland Clinic and the insurance company refused to send him by ambulance, which is what the doctor was recommending Absolutely.
Speaker 1:And yeah, yeah, he was on all kinds of medicine, I mean. So, for people who don't know, when you have a hole in the middle of your heart, you're oxygenated and non-oxygenated blood or mixing, and then you die. Right, you could.
Speaker 2:It's not a good situation?
Speaker 1:No, not by any stretch. Okay, I'm just making sure I'm not being overdramatic. If we had known about your company and I guess it was longer than 17 years ago well, if we had known about your company, that would have been a better option. I'm not even sure that you would have agreed.
Speaker 2:You know, given your father's condition and the way it's been described to me, you know I might have just said you're better off with an air ambulance company. You know this is one of the things that people call us and you know doctors will call us, hospitals call us and say, hey, is this somebody who you know meets the criteria to fly on a commercial airline? And if it's not safe, we're not going to do it. So we'll just say, look, you need an air ambulance. And the problem there is air ambulance is expensive and you know people are spending tens of thousands of dollars, you know, for an air ambulance service. But if you need it, that's what you need, you know there's no cheap way to do it.
Speaker 2:What our service is for those people who don't necessarily need that ICU level of care, you know, but do need a medical attention to flight. That's kind of where we come in.
Speaker 1:OK, and we're talking about RVers. We're talking about people who, for the most part, need to be transported within the country, but you transport pretty much anywhere, from anywhere to anywhere.
Speaker 2:We fly all over, all over the globe. You know, antarctica, haiti and maybe a few countries that end in stand are places we're not going to right now, but China, india, africa we're flying people all over the world.
Speaker 1:Okay, and so I'm going to be transparent and say we're a little partial here. I'm going to be transparent and say we're a little partial here If anybody has this issue or just wants to make sure. Again, knowing how to prepare for an emergency is the most important thing, so knowing that this company exists. If you don't want to listen to anything, we just said I went through there so you could go to Flying Angels Philadelphia, google it. There are over 295 five-star reviews.
Speaker 1:I just double-checked it's almost 300 five-star reviews and I the other day, preparing for this episode, went through a few after I've realized like 30 minutes had gone by. But some of the most touching, touching, heartfelt thank yous and I can't tell you how many times they've called a nurse like Doug an angel, audrey and your other nurses, and that is what you want to listen to. You want to look at, check out those reviews, get people's honest opinions, because when you need this, then you want to again be prepared. So you know make sure that's part of your emergency information that Flying Angels is a company that's there to transport you should you need it. A couple other questions. First of all, before I go to my questions, is there something else that you want to add here that I might be missing.
Speaker 2:No, you've actually done a terrific job of covering the highlights you know. Just to clarify, dan and I have been friends for coming up on almost 40 years now, so you know it was good to be able to help.
Speaker 1:Dan out in this time of need. To be able to help Dan out in this time of need. Yeah, it was a difficult situation and I think I'm just going to say sometimes in those difficult situations, you know who the people are and you know whether you're on the road by yourself and you just want to get away from your family and friends. At the end of the day, that's who's going to be there and hopefully nobody ever needs anything we talked about. Nobody ever needs this. You're RVing, you're traveling, you're enjoying life. It's just nice to be prepared, right?
Speaker 2:Well, as you said, it's necessary to be prepared. Just as you want to be prepared for that mechanical breakdown that you hope never happens, you want to be prepared for that mechanical breakdown that you hope never happens. You want to be prepared for that medical breakdown, if something ever happens.
Speaker 1:Right, right, so I did. You also were on the show before. I'm going to put that in the show notes because we also talked about medical kit, first day kit, because there are times you have to handle stuff yourself. And what do I need in a medical kit? And again, it doesn't matter if you're just going for a weekend. There are certain things you should be prepared for, especially if you have kids, right absolutely kids are just so unpredictable kids are accidents.
Speaker 2:Just what ready you know they're gonna happen as any, I, I've had three kids of my own, you know well, you just deal with it, oh yeah, oh yeah, me too, and I've been to yours more times that I want to count.
Speaker 1:And so again just to recap in an emergency there's a quick decision, whether you call 911 or drive somebody to an emergency room. How do you, can you just quickly like that's a tough?
Speaker 2:one Again. That's that crisis decision. The faster you get somebody to an ER, the better off they are. And you know the question that you have to make is can you get somebody to treatment, or can you get them to an ER faster yourself than if you went and got an ambulance to go get them there? So if you feel like you can get somebody to a hospital in 10 minutes, you're probably better off just getting them to the hospital than you know waiting the 20, 30, 40 minutes it might take for the ambulance to get there and then start driving back to the hospital.
Speaker 1:Right, and that is also obviously dependent. So with Dan, when he had COVID, his oxygen level was 69. Like even now saying that is just mind-boggling. The ambulance being there and them starting him on oxygen was a better decision. Could I have gotten him to the ER quicker, Maybe, but it was a better decision to have them there. And maybe people will say why did you wait? He's a man, that's all I'm going to say is he is a man.
Speaker 2:Dan is stubborn.
Speaker 1:Really.
Speaker 2:Yes, I know that's a shock.
Speaker 1:Yes, oh yeah, totally floored. So I guess listening to your intuition and your gut. But ambulance, calling 911, taking somebody to an ER or just like, is it an urgent care type of situation? There's no exact science, there's no chart we can give somebody to say this is what to do. Obviously, if their oxygen is low, breathing is an issue. You think they're having a heart attack stroke.
Speaker 2:Don't waste. Don't waste any time If you think there's a question. You know we still talk about the golden hour for somebody who's had a stroke. If you can get them into treatment, you know, within an hour of the initial onset of symptoms, the viability of them recovering is much better than if you wait a while. And unfortunately, in Dan's particular situation, he just had, he had a series of mini strokes, so there wasn't one particular event where you can say, well, wait a second. You know this happened at 11 o'clock in the morning on Tuesday. He unfortunately had a, had a progressive deterioration in his cognitive state, so Right and again filling people in who aren't aware his symptoms.
Speaker 1:People ask a lot and I actually had somebody say, well, it's none of anybody's business, but I don't agree, I put myself out there, we've been out there, we've done this podcast together. So his symptoms are the best way to describe them are more like somebody who has dementia.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 1:Just for people, because they want it out. So he's up, he's walking, he's talking, but he doesn't have.
Speaker 2:Anybody who is dealing with somebody has dementia. Unfortunately, that is probably the best way to describe Dan at this time.
Speaker 1:Okay, so that just gives an update for my listeners. So much and again, I'm just going to encourage people in being prepared, in having your paperwork teaching everybody in that RV how to dial 911. You have kids sometimes teach them how to use the. I'd say teach them how to use the cell phone, but they probably are no better than you do.
Speaker 1:But knowing how we practice fire drills, we practice certain things, it's probably something that could. It's not probably. It is something that could potentially save somebody's life. But knowing how we practice fire drills, we practice certain things, it's probably something that could. It's not probably, it is something that could potentially save somebody's life. And again, the kids should know where they are, how to access information. Being prepared, having companies like Flying Angels there are other companies out there Obviously I'm partial, for good reason. I mean 297 five star reviews of the recording of this is impressive, to say the least. But having the information written down so somebody could open it up and say, ok, this is what I need to do, helps, helps because it's many times since I've dealt with emergency situations.
Speaker 1:You don't it, it's you. I don't think you're ever fully prepared for them, you're not for me. I go into like I, this is what I need to do. There's no emotion. Same thing with my kids and I had a, a child who was 11 months old. She had started walking before she was 10 months old, so she was into everything. She got into a bottle of medicine. I knew that was an immediate emergency. I'm on the phone with Poison Control and they said well, this could stop her heart. I am in total control. I got her in the car, got her to the hospital After she was fine. That's when I break down. But the more prepared, the better prepared you are, the better you can handle these things that you hope never happens.
Speaker 1:So, okay, I have a question. We're going to switch gears here. Talk about something a little more upbeat. It's time for the question of the week, and you know it's coming because you listen to every episode. I'm a super fan, yes, yes, of the week, and you know it's coming because you listen to every episode. I was a fan, yes, yes. So I'm gonna answer what's on your bucket list person place experience. Before you answer, I want to talk to people.
Speaker 1:We are in philadelphia right now and it is really hot and muggy. You're now going to be able to see clips of the podcast episodes on my YouTube channel. It's brand new. Subscribe like comment. Help me out with that. The YouTube channel is Inspired Travels with Patty, so you'll be able to see. My hair is flat because it is so humid here in Philadelphia right now. But Cool RV is this amazing? It's a game changer. It's an RV air conditioner upgrade and with CoolRV you get more airflow and whisper quiet and cooler air. It is an amazing invention. I had the inventor on the show. You could hear his story, an incredible story. So, whether you're off-grid or at a campsite, upgrade your ride with Cool RV where comfort meets the road, and you can check them out at Cool RV K-O-O-L-R-V today, com today. Okay, so your answer?
Speaker 2:Antarctica. Really yes.
Speaker 1:Now, I've known this guy for a long time.
Speaker 2:I didn't see that coming. No, that is. I have. I've had the great privilege to be all over the world. I have. I've been to almost 50 countries traveling for work, but the one continent that I have not been to is Antarctica. So, along with quite a number of our medical team who have traveled a lot and who have been to Africa and have been to Asia and have been to India and South America and Europe, well, where's the only place that we haven't been? You know, we haven't been to Antarctica, because they don't have a commercial airport there.
Speaker 1:Oh, I was going to say so you can't do a transport there.
Speaker 2:We can't do a transport to. Antarctica. So that's on my bucket list.
Speaker 1:Okay, antarctica Interesting things you learn when you interview your good friend on a podcast. Okay, it's now time for the Featured Campground of the Week and it's brought to you by RV Life and that is a suite of products that helps you navigate from one place to another. It's RV Safe GPS, and one of my favorite features is the campground review site. And today's campground. It is in Pennsylvania. I just thought it would be great, you know, since we're about an hour from it, pennsylvania. I just thought it'd be great, you know, since we're about an hour from it. It's Robin Hill RV Resort and Campground in Len Harrisville, pa. I don't know if I butchered that, but you can look it up. It is family friendly and there's so much to do in the campground and in the beautiful PA Dutch country. There's so much to do out there.
Speaker 1:And even though we're an hour and a half from that area, I don't think I saw the things and appreciated the things that area has to offer until I was in an RV. It's really kind of crazy. They have 212 sites with full hookups, they have the dog park and, if you're like me and don't have an RV right now, they have cabin and cottage rentals. Don't have an RV right now. They have cabin and cottage rentals. They have a solid 7.3 on the RV Life Campgrounds app and that's with 60 reviews Just 60. Wow. And you can go to campgroundsrvlifecom and look up Robin Hill RV Resort Campground and then you can find out everything about it. You can read the reviews. You can find all the photos from the area.
Speaker 1:I actually stayed in this campground and it is absolutely beautiful. There's a huge pond and a swimming pool and it's just set in a country and rustic and I really loved it there. And they have full amenities, full hookups. They have full amenities, full hookups. If you go to campgroundsrvlifecom, you can, like I said, check it all out. Campgroundsrvlifecom is the most comprehensive source for city, state and national campgrounds public campgrounds, private campgrounds they have it all. They have it all. And if there is a campground that they don't have, just send them a message or you could also put it up on the site yourself. Anybody who is not part of the RV Life Pro community you can get a 25% discount by clicking on the link. It's so worth it. And if you're traveling I say this because I just saw somebody that said they use Google Maps to travel in their RV. Big mistake, big mistake. So if you're traveling in anything bigger than a minivan, you need a good RV, safe GPS right, you don't want to find that low bridge or low tunnel.
Speaker 1:Has this happened to you? Did I not give the?
Speaker 2:story Years ago, when Dan was working out of an RV and this was probably 30 years ago he got in some trouble because he was driving an RV and they came across a bridge he couldn't go under. So he and I actually worked together to map out our routes and again, this is pre-internet data, so you know, worked out to make sure that there weren't any low bridges on the route that he was taking. So you know. Now you know, and again, having had two RVs here in Philadelphia, you know I know there's any number of roads I don't dare take because you know you're going to find. You know that 10-foot tunnel. You know. I know there's any number of roads I don't dare take because you know you're going to find. You know that 10-foot tunnel. You know here in the Philadelphia metropolitan area there's some old bridges and you know the idea of having you know, I mean I couldn't imagine going anywhere without an RV trip wizard and just knowing that my route is safe.
Speaker 1:Right and Google Maps just don't know how tall your RV is, how much it weighs, how long it is, whether you're towing something. So there are roads. If you're towing or you're too long, you can't go on a road and something that happened to us because from Philadelphia we go down to Washington, the Baltimore Tunnel you can't go through with the big propane tanks.
Speaker 1:Now the small. You can't go through with the big propane tanks. Now the small ones that you use for a barbecue grill are fine, but we learned that the hard way and had we gotten stopped that would have been a big fine. So again it's the whole suite of products cost $65 a year. In the first year you're getting 25% off. You can't beat it. Well, thank you so much for being on and just offering so much great information. People could go to Facebook page to Flying Angel to take questions. There are people on that can answer those correct. They can always call if they have questions, if they're in a situation Sometimes we didn't mention. But you transport somebody because they're in a hospital, they need a certain type of rehab and you'll transport them to a different rehab or a nursing home, those kinds of things.
Speaker 2:And we also. We transport people who have dementia. So it's simple term. If grandma is in an assisted living in Florida and the family want to move her up to New York or Philadelphia and you know she's just in a memory care unit or has some cognitive impairments and family scattered all over the country, you know they can reach out to us and you know we will make bedside to bedside arrangements and transport her safely where she needs to go on a commercial airline in a first class seat with a critical care registered flight nurse sitting right next to her.
Speaker 1:And that's something we didn't talk about is the fact that when you call the phone number, when somebody calls the phone number, there is a coordinator and there's got to be a shrugger word for coordinator because they handle everything there is from bedside to bedside. They're handling it. If you're getting to the airport and you need to be transported from the airport to a nursing home or to the family's home, they are handling that. If a flight should get canceled, they are handling it. So the person trying to transport somebody does not have to worry about. They even handle. If you're going outside the country, do you have the right passport and right paperwork? You know they have medications. They make sure that they have for the patient. So when I say they handle everything, they literally handle everything.
Speaker 1:So thank you for again for sharing all of this information and helping people to be prepared. Reach out to me if you have questions. I will pass them along and get any questions you have answered, and you could go to my Facebook page or Instagram and that's Harvey Life Podcast. You could go to Flying Angels website or social media. Flying Angels is on social media, yep we are.
Speaker 1:Thank you, and I really encourage people ask the questions now the what if this happens, what if that? Ask now, we will answer every message that we get right.
Speaker 2:Absolutely Okay.
Speaker 1:I want to thank you, my listeners, and remind you life's a journey. Live each day to the fullest, without regrets. I'm Patty Hunt and you've been listening to the fullest without regrets. I'm Patti Hunt and you've been listening to the RV Life Podcast.